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{"id":3823,"date":"2016-02-02T21:38:47","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T03:38:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=3823"},"modified":"2016-02-02T21:38:47","modified_gmt":"2016-02-03T03:38:47","slug":"dumb-zika-virus-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/02\/dumb-zika-virus-question.html","title":{"rendered":"Dumb Zika virus question"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"mosquito-feeding-on-blood-pv\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m putting this out there not because I think I\u2019m right, but because I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019m wrong, and I\u2019m hoping readers\u00a0can step in and correct me.<\/p>\n

This is what I \u2014 and likely you \u2014 have read about the Zika virus so far: \u00a0when an individual is infected, 3 times out of 4, you\u2019re asymptomatic. \u00a0When you do have symptoms, they\u2019re comparable to having a mild and short-lasting flu, for a week or even as few as several days. \u00a0And I presume that, as with any virus, once you\u2019ve been infected, you\u2019ve got immunity.\u00a0The only real trouble is when a pregnant woman gets infected, because, with unknown frequency, her baby is at risk of microcephaly.<\/p>\n

Now, again, I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m talking about, but remember chicken pox? \u00a0In the old days, when you and I were kids (yes, I date myself), it was a routine childhood illness, and a given that you\u2019d get it at some point or another, and some moms, in the hope of their kids catching it at a more convenient, preschool age, would deliberately expose them to another sick child. \u00a0Heck, I remember when the chicken pox vaccine first came out, and there was some dispute\u00a0about whether it was really needed, because it was only an inconvenience to parents, nothing particularly serious for the kids, except for a small number of cases where the children experienced more serious complications.<\/p>\n

Which leads to wonder whether, for the time being, until a vaccine is developed, a woman in the at-risk areas, who wants to get pregnant or even, intentionally or not, may well end up pregnant, would actually be better off being intentionally infected with the virus prior to conception, in order to become immune afterwards. \u00a0Wouldn\u2019t it be a sort of vaccination, except with the illness itself so mild that you don\u2019t wait around for someone to come up with any other sort of weakened or killed form of the virus, but just suffer through a few days of the illness itself?<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m going to guess that most of the time, the illness is non-existent or super-mild, but that there are enough cases of more severe or more lasting forms (though the internet isn\u2019t any help here) that the trade-off \u2014 Zika now, to protect future offspring later \u2014 isn\u2019t worth it, because I think that\u2019s more likely to be the case than it is for this to be a genius idea that only I, and no one else, not any of the WHO experts, have thought of.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m still curious.<\/p>\n

(Image from\u00a0http:\/\/www.freestockphotos.biz\/stockphoto\/16735)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"